Stories of the Day

Thanks Obama and all you BIG GOVERNMENT, “GOVERNMENT CAN SOLVE ALL OF OUR ILLS” DEMOCRATS… “Lagasse shared his thoughts on TNT’s On the Menu. He predicts that if the government doesn’t start getting out of the way, the American restaurant industry will split and leave entrepreneurs and start-ups behind. American restaurants will consist only of high-end establishments like the ones Lagasse owns, fast food and chain restaurants, because no one else will be able to succeed.” Famed Chef Emeril Lagasse Says Obama May Drive Him Broke

BIG GOVERNMENT ON STEROIDS. “He mocked the federal government’s extreme low-ball on the cost of regulations at $127 billion. “Too often, regulatory impacts don’t get measured. But further, the disruption of market processes and the derailment of wealth, safety and health creating processes themselves are for the most part wholly neglected. We can say, circa 2015, according to back of the envelope surveys, roundups and placeholders, with gaps big enough to fit the beltway through, that up to $1.882 trillion annually — and in many categories perhaps considerably more — is a defensible assessment,” he wrote in his report.” Federal regs cost $1.88 trillion, more with Obama’s ‘pen and phone’ rules

But don’t worry. We’ve got all of those experts in Washington D.C. on the case. They’ll surely solve this problem! “A new report by Moody’s Investors Service finds that public pensions are $2 trillion short of the amount they owe current and future retirees. “Combined with large unfunded liabilities, aging plan demographics effectively transfer costs incurred by a previous generation onto the present one, increasing the burden on current government operations,” the report stated. More troubling is the fact that the pension shortfalls have expanded dramatically even as pension systems “were earning close to their currently expected returns,” stated the report.” PUBLIC PENSIONS $2 TRILLION SHORT OF WHAT THEY OWE RETIREES

Sleep well America: Cutting costs in all the wrong places. “The U.S. Navy’s latest shipbuilding plan would see its attack submarine fleet diminish from 55 to 41 boats in the next decade and a half. That decision, confirmed in August, was eclipsed by the advance of ISIL, war in Gaza, and sedition in Ukraine. But the Navy’s announcement—the single-largest strategic consequence of this administration’s defense cuts—has the most far-reaching ramifications of the summer’s events.” A Naval Disaster in the Making: The misbegotten plan to shrink the U.S. submarine fleet.

More On the Big Story From Yesterday

“Mr. Strelka can’t hide forever. Judge Bates is fed up with Department’s delays and ordered the list of documents Mr. Holder and Mr. Obama have been hiding for years now on their Fast and Furious scheme. Soon, Judge Sullivan could appoint a special prosecutor or demand production of the back-up server’s emails, or give Judicial Watch additional discovery after October 17. One thing is for certain. Mr. Holder didn’t just wake up today and decide he wanted to go fishing. There are truths underlying this resignation that will be shocking when they surface. Mr. Holder will no longer have the shield of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice to protect him from congressional, grand jury, or other subpoenas. The next question is: Which criminal lawyer will he hire to defend him and how soon? The hiding places are filling up faster than you can say “you’re running out of time.” Eric Holder Runs from a Ticking Time Bomb: IRS Deadline Approaches Fast, Federal Judges are Furious—and Where’s Andrew Selka?

“Eric Holder’s legal mercies have typically been reserved for Clinton donors and unrepentant terrorists, but his decision yesterday to step down as attorney general of the United States after nearly six years is an act of mercy toward the American public. In an administration characterized by outsized misadventures — from the use of the nation’s tax bureau to suppress political opponents to the use of secret waiting lists at government hospitals that killed American servicemen — Eric Holder managed to make his Justice Department a source of special, nay, historic attention: In June 2012, Holder became the first U.S. attorney general to be held in contempt by the House of Representatives. He earned every vote. [Snip] As for Holder, his time in the spotlight may not be over. The congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, and other dubious Department of Justice activities, continues, and Holder may — and likely should — find himself facing further congressional inquiry. Regardless, the end of Holder’s death grip on law enforcement at the federal level is long overdue. Perhaps now the Justice Department can get back to delivering actual justice.” Eric Holder’s Rap Sheet

Interesting theory you have there Mr. Simon. “Now I have a theory about the etiology of Holder’s fixation on race. When you know deep down you’re a dishonest person, when you have had to eat the bitter pill of your own corruption who knows how many times (even Clinton finally admitted that he had gone too far pardoning Rich and damaged his own reputation), you have to invent a narrative for yourself to justify your activities. So over may years Holder developed what I have called elsewhere a “nostalgia for racism.” No matter that racism was diminishing in our culture, he had to keep racism alive, believe it was alive. If racism were going away, he would no longer have a raison d’être, an excuse for his biased behavior, an excuse, as it turned out, to go beyond the law, act unilaterally and punish political enemies. Toward this end, in a sense, Holder encouraged racism, as did Obama. They are both slightly more polished versions of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Like Jackson and Sharpton, they act as if they care about the black man or woman in the street, but in actuality they just care about themselves. The racial posturing is a form of moral narcissism that works to preserve racism, not to defeat it. It’s not by accident black America is suffering under Obama/Holder. At least subconsciously, it’s by design.” Dosvedanya, Holder: America’s First Soviet Attorney General Steps Down

Amnesty/Illegal Immigration

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement released thousands of illegal-alien families from this summer’s border surge – the large majority of those who were apprehended – with instructions to report to the particular ICE office at their final destination. DHS has repeatedly refused to say how many of them actually show up as directed. Well, the AP secured a recording of “a confidential meeting at its [ICE’s] Washington headquarters with immigration advocates” where ICE acknowledged that 70 percent of those released “never showed up weeks later for follow-up appointments.” [Snip] No wonder morale among DHS employees is “abysmal.” And the circumstances of this revelation are also outrageous. We only know this information because of a leaked audio recording (kudos to the whistleblower, whoever it is) from a meeting with anti-enforcement activists undoubtedly whining about how cruel ICE is.” 70 Percent of Illegals Released by ICE Don’t Appear for Follow-up Appointments

“On the one hand, the fact that almost none of the tens of thousands of illegal arrivals during the last few months showed up for their scheduled immigration hearings is not news at all. It was so predictable as to be virtually inevitable, a foregone conclusion. On the other hand it’s big news, or should be. It means that our immigration laws are not just broken, they are a joke. What’s more, everyone knows it, including and perhaps especially the illegal immigrants entering our country, who plan at the outset to take full advantage of the situation.” And this is news why?

“Citigroup has figured out where its bread is buttered, and has signed on to the agenda to engineer an electorate that will keep the Democrats in power permanently, as Ed Lasky explained earlier this week. The Illinois Review (and almost nobody else in the media) reveals:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has announced that Chicago will join New York and Los Angeles in a corporate-funded push to try to get more immigrants to become voting U.S. citizens. [Snip]

Remember the days when fat cat bankers were presumed to be Republicans? It’s a whole new era, in which crony capitalism rules, and big government stands ready to bail out the giant banks. Big government and big banks are brother and sister now, and only those crude tea partiers really bother to object. If you do business with Citi, keep in mind whom you are supporting (and giving your financial data to).” Citigroup funding left wing immigrant voter registration drive

Climate Change

“Mr. Williamson goes on to describe some horrific examples of environmental disasters wrought by the leaders of socialist governments during the twentieth century. His article is worth a read. Since capitalism is an economic system separate from government, as opposed to socialism, there are checks and balances in place. Some of these come from government regulation (which ideally should be minimal), but are primarily derived from the forces of competition within the market. The primary problem with socialism is that once you have the regulators and the regulated working for the same people, mismanagement and corruption inevitably occur and become pervasive. Environmental nightmares naturally ensue.” It’s All About System Change (to Socialism), Not Climate Change

Hillary Clinton

You really MUST click on over and read the entire thing. “The article had to do with Chozick’s bathroom habits. Every time she felt the urge, a representative of the Clintons would accompany her to the ladies’ room. Every time. And not only would the “friendly 20-something press aide” stroll with Chozick to the entrance of the john. She also “waited outside the stall.” As though Chozick were a little girl. If it was not embarrassing enough to be chaperoned to the water closet by a recent college graduate no doubt beaming with righteousness and an entirely undeserved and illusory sense of self-importance, some earnest and vacant and desperate-to-be-hip Millennial whose affiliation with the Clintons, whose involvement in their various schemes, consists of nothing more than her uniform of white shirt and silk scarf—if this was not on its own an indignity and an insult for a correspondent of the New York Times, when Chozick asked for comment on the bathroom police, she received the following response:

The Left

The Left exposed as hypocrites once again. “Andrew Sullivan, a conservative who largely became an Obama booster, is equally incredulous: “The way in which Obama supporters have lamely acquiesced to this reckless war fomented by a dangerous executive power-grab is more than a little depressing. It strikes me as uncomfortably close to pure partisanship. I can’t imagine them downplaying the folly of this if a Republican president were in charge.” Now of course a president’s strongest partisans will give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to controversial policies. And of course they will be quicker to jump on a president of the opposing party. But war, and peace, would seem to be one of those issues that would trump ideological allegiances.” Defanging the Left: Why liberals are staying silent on Obama’s war

“The progressive project that, in various forms, consumed most of the twentieth century, ran out of ideological justification with the fall of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China into… something more approaching Nazi Germany than the Communist Project. This has taken the certainty from under the followers of the left. The smarter ones, surely, know their ideology is rubbish and there isn’t a working example of a top-down socialist/communist society in the world that is self-sustaining, let alone competes with the US in innovation and creation at any level. Even the not so smart ones have to have an inkling. They can no longer point to the USSR and tell us if only we knew its wonders we’d convert. Their leaders are old, their ideas are depleted. They, in the parlance of my kids generation “got nothing.” So instead of real belief they have the desperate clutching at the appearance of belief and conformity, the appearance of being right. They’ve done so much for the cause, most of these celebrities and ideologues, that to backtrack now would be unthinkable. They’d have to face themselves in the morning and realize that they supported causes and movements that killed a hundred million people worldwide and held far more in abject squalor. They can’t do that. Courage was never their strong suit, otherwise they wouldn’t have gone along with the crowd after the fall of the USSR. So they just want us to “shut up already” and “die” so that in their totalitarian version of reality no little voice shall mar their self image.” The Future Must Belong to Those Who Question

War on Women

We hope that the smart women among us will wake up to the fact that this is a “manufactured war.” “The “war on women” is back, and more tendentious than ever. Democrats are replaying one of their greatest hits of 2012 in their furious battle to minimize their midterm losses in a political environment defined by an unpopular president and general unease. And why not? The war on women has a proven record of success — in mobilizing Democratic women and trumping what would otherwise seem much more important issues — and it is so simple that any idiot can run on it. The recipe is one part taking offense where clearly none was intended, and one part discerning new nefarious schemes to deny women access to birth control.” The Incredibly Insipid War on Women 2.0

We’ve got a terrific line up for our annual Christmas program. First up will be the Ignite Barbershop Quartet. Ignite began singing together after a quartet matching party in November 2015. They are all Champion members of Region 21’s Scottsdale Chorus and they will be singing for us!

After lunch, Congressional District 6 congressman, Representative David Schweikart, will talk to us about what’s happening in Washington DC, and provide us with a status of the Tax Bill working its way through the House of Representatives and Senate.

Finally, member Julia Graham will install our new 2018/2019 officers. We look forward to seeing you and be sure to bring a friend or two or three!